What Does it Mean to be an Adoptee?

Adoption isn’t a phase that one experiences for a period of time. It’s a lifelong
journey for everyone involved; Birth Parent, Adoptive Parent, and Adoptee.
Everyone’s experience with adoption is unique, so as an adoptee, the ways that
your adoption will affect you will be equally unique. No two adoptees will
experience the exact same impact of adoption, which makes the meaning of adoption
different to each adoptee.

To an adoptee,
the meaning of adoption can be difficult to put into words and it often involves
complicated emotions. Every adoption story is unique so every adoptee will have
a unique understanding of what adoption means to them. Some adoptees will need to
process why their Birth Parents chose adoption for them and some will have to face
that adoption may have been the only option to remove them from a dangerous and
unhealthy environment. Other adoptees will have to comprehend the circumstances
that brought them to their adoptive family in the US from another country and
others will know what it means for a stepparent or relative to adopt them.
Depending on the adoptive family, as an adoptee grows up they may need to address
what it means for them to be a part of a transracial or multicultural family.
An adoptee’s personal meaning of adoption will be determined by their own living
experience.

Adoptees generally live a regular life similar to someone who wasn’t adopted;
however, they have experiences that are unique to being adopted and these
experiences may have an
impact
on their lives at various times throughout their lives. While not all adoptees
will go through these struggles related to their adoption, some may have to
overcome feelings such as loss and grief, questions about self-identity, or a
lack of information about their medical background. Regardless of a happy adoption,
an adoptee may have to understand that their adoption began through a loss.
Birth Parents may decide to part with their child, circumstances might require
adoptees to part with their birth family and for some Adoptive Parents, they
learn that they can’t have a child on their own. Adoptees may be left with a
sense of grief and loss towards their adoption. This can create mixed feelings
for adoptees, joy at being placed with their adoptive family and sometimes guilt
or grief for being curious or missing their birth family. While this complex
mixture of emotions can sometimes be difficult for you and even harder for your
adoptive family to understand, it’s important to recognize that everyone within
the adoption triad has experienced both loss and gain to some degree, including
adoptees. Some adoptees may never experience this loss the way other adoptees do.

For adoptees, forming a healthy self-identity can be a challenge if the adoptee
doesn’t feel like they fit in with either their birth or adoptive families. Some
adoptees feel split between the two, or they feel different from peers who were
raised by their biological families. This sense of alienation that some adoptees
experience can create an adoption identity crisis, which can sometimes contribute
to feelings of anxiety, depression, or low self-esteem. An
adoptee’s identity
crisis can be improved with some work, support and patience from family and friends.
Some adoptees face the problem of having little to no information available to
them in a closed adoption. Although almost all adoptions today are open, there
are many adoptees who struggle with the negative effects of a closed adoption.
These difficulties include: A lack of medical or social history, making it
difficult for these adoptees and their children to diagnose health problems.
With open adoption increasing over the years, the effect of these issues happening
to an adoptee has decreased dramatically. Adoption is an ongoing journey for
everyone involved, so don’t feel afraid to reach out for support if you’re
struggling with your journey.

Adoptees come in all shapes and sizes. Some were adopted as infants, some were
fostered, and others placed with an adoptive family at an older age. Some adoptions
happen within the birth family, when a relative of the child gains custody in
lieu of the Birth Parents. Others are placed in families across state lines,
across borders, or in other continents. Some adoptees learn of their adoption in
childhood, and others find out later in life. Adoptees can be international,
intercultural, and interracial. The adoption experience has many variations.
Click here
to read the names are adoptees and their Adoptive Parents who have brought
adoption awareness to the world.

For many adoptees, your personal meaning of adoption is a loving family and
living life to the fullest. For private US newborn adoptions, adoptees may see
their adoption differently at certain stages in their life, but at one point in
their adoption they understand the difficult choice their Birth Parents went
through in placing them for adoption and a genuine appreciation for making that
decision in their best interest. Understandably, an adoptee’s personal meaning of
adoption will be determined by their own experience living through their adoption.
Children whose adoption stories are openly discussed will usually view their
adoption in a more positive way than children from whom the truth has been hidden
or is not an open topic of discussion. Always remember you were wanted by your
Adoptive Parents and loved by both your Birth Parents and Adoptive Parents at the
time of your adoption and that love for you will always continue on.